


Mother Sky and Father Deep

by Poetry



Series: Dæmorphing Divergences [5]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Alien Culture, Controllers (Animorphs), Dark, Gen, Hork-Bajir, Lima Syndrome, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Yeerks, yeerk peace movement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 14:17:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18918715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/pseuds/Poetry
Summary: A Hork-Bajir-Controller joins the Yeerk Peace Movement.





	Mother Sky and Father Deep

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt by @inklesspen. Set in the Dæmorphing universe, but can probably be understood even if you don't know the AU.

**Sub-Visser Seventy-Nine’s Regiment**

  


**#geddcontrollers**

A channel for Gedd-Controllers to discuss host subjugation and maintenance strategies. Remember to report any subversive activity to @Esplin1871, the content moderator for the Grash Akdap message wells.

  


**Odret 1012**

Well, comrades, it looks like it’s time for me to leave this channel. I’ve been reassigned.

  


**Garmiray 801**

A new host? And not a Gedd? We’ll miss you at the feeding troughs! 

  


**Temrash 726**

Well? What did you get?

  


**Odret 1012**

Hork-Bajir. I’m entering training to become a guard. Should be simple enough, I got assigned a host raised from infancy in the Pool complex. I hear the freshly-broken ones from the homeworld can be a real pain.

  


**Temrash 726**

Ooh, you’ll get to do target practice with Dracon beams. I’ve always wanted to try that. Watch out for those visual distortions, though. I hear they can get real confusing.

  


Odret gets the notice to report to the infestation pier for their new host, and logs out of the terminal. There will be experienced Hork-Bajir-Controllers there to help them adjust to the new host body. They are not afraid. But it will be unfamiliar, unsettling, not like the comfortable slow weight of the Gedd whose name they are trying their best to forget – it belongs to somebody else now.

But this Hork-Bajir now belongs to them.

Odret pushes their way in, obeys their training and understands the shape of the mind before trying to move the body. The Hork-Bajir’s name is Lub Geta.  He loves his sister Kel, who is taken, and he loves Mab Fillat, a Hork-Bajir a little older than him who taught him about  _hrala_ -sight. The true-elders told Lub that the taken-elders said things that were not true about the takers, the Yeerks. They call themselves gods, but they are cruel, not like the true gods, Father Deep and Mother Sky. When Lub asked the true-elders,  _what is a sky_ , they fell silent.

«Who are the true-elders?» Odret demands, digging deep into Lub’s brain. But the true-elders speak to the young ones with their heads buried in food scraps and filth, so they can’t see or smell. 

The stupid, docile slave Odret was promised is a lie. There will be no relief from Trarrer’s – the  _Gedd’s_  – screaming.

Lub sees his beloved Mab behind him on the infestation pier, and the body that is now Odret’s is full of longing to reach out to him. In the arms of his experienced minders, Odret slowly asserts control, but he can’t stamp the longing out. The minders half-drag him off the pier and take him to one of the underground freight trains. “You’re going to the training grounds,” they say. “Get control of your host by the time you arrive.”

When the train arrives, Sub-Visser Seventy-Nine herself boards the windowless train car and says, “Are you in control?”

“Yes, Sub-Visser.”

“Good. Then come.”

Odret steps out into a dry, barren land of cracked yellow dirt, and Lub Geta, who until now has been quiet, says in a breath of pure wonder, «Mother Sky!»

It sticks in Odret’s palps the way the Gedd’s screaming never did.

  


**Private Message – Eftrof**

  


**Eftrof**

How are you doing with the new host?

  


**WaveRiderChampion**

Oh, you know. I’m adjusting. It’s fine.

  


**Eftrof**

You don’t have to thunder up a brave feel-field, Odret. We’re in private messages. You’re using your stupid old childhood alias from when you got that Pool high score in Wave Rider. I have an alias from a censored saga.

  


**Eftrof**

I know it’s hard to change hosts. It’s stupid to pretend it’s not.

  


**WaveRiderChampion**

I just thought it would be easier. With a captive-born Hork-Bajir and all that. But it isn’t.

  


**Eftrof**

And why is that?

  


**WaveRiderChampion**

I thought its mind would be molded for me. Ready to accept me as its master. But he wasn’t like that at all. He’s learned some kind of way of life from other Hork-Bajir. He has his own beliefs. He wants to be free.

  


**WaveRiderChampion**

If a captive-born Hork-Bajir can be like him, then I think it must mean that it’s impossible to break hosts to our use. It’s always going to be like this. We’ll always have to break them ourselves, over and over. 

  


**WaveRiderChampion**

By the Kandrona, please don’t report me for saying that.

  


**Eftrof**

I won’t!

  


**Eftrof**

Of course I won’t. I think you’re right. I think we dream of a day when we have enough hosts to be safe from the Andalites, and we can be at peace, but that day will never come. So long as we have our hosts, we will always be at war.

  


TSSSEEEEEEWWWW. Another neat hole burns through the target, preceded by a line of steam as the beam vaporizes the rain. Odret checks the charge on his Dracon beam. Lub imagines the sky is a kind mother, crying the soft rain down.

“Odret 1012,” says the arms trainer. “Turn in your weapon and report to Sub-Visser Seventy-Nine.”

A frisson of fear, but there’s nothing stern in that voice. Odret returns the Dracon beam and reports in to the facility.

“You’re taking the next train back to the Pool,” the Sub-Visser says.

“But Sub-Visser, it’s siar-rane!”

The Sub-Visser barely looks away from her tactical diagrams. “You’ve been temporarily assigned to Host Propagation. I’ll see you next rane.”

“Of course, Sub-Visser,” Odret says, and goes to wait at the tunnel where the train is to arrive. But they have no idea what Host Propagation is. 

Lub’s skin burns and prickles with utter dread. «Do you know what Host Propagation is?» Odret demands.

Their host will not elaborate. So Odret boards the train when it comes, and spends the trip delving into Lub’s memories of the true-elders and their lessons in the filth and the dark. Of course. It makes sense. Where did they think those captive-born Hork-Bajir came from?

Odret understands, from their schooling, how the various hosts of the Yeerk Empire reproduce. They never gave the matter much thought. But Lub burns and shivers beneath his skin, caught in a circle of terrible thoughts:  _the true-elders say this is wrong. Hork-Bajir are meant to choose who they touch, and when we are untaken, or in the cages, we must choose and let each other choose. Now I do not choose. But I want to hold another Hork-Bajir. I want to be kind. Is this a chance to touch and be kind?_

The train arrives at the Pool. The passengers report to the Taxxon on duty. Feeding. Feeding. Administrative duty. Feeding. And when it’s Odret’s turn, they say, “Host Propagation.”

“ _Hard luck_ ,” the duty Taxxon says in hissing Galard. “ _Report to the Hork-Bajir section of Medical_.”

Odret has been to Medical before, when the Gedd caught tongue-rot. But in the Hork-Bajir section, besides the sick, there are the battle-maimed, there to regenerate or euthanize the host so the Yeerk can move on, and a line of fidgeting but healthy Hork-Bajir-Controllers, waiting. Host Propagation. Odret stands in line.

  


The doctor takes Odret to the strangest room they have ever seen in the Pool complex, full of potted plants, its floor strewn with dirt and wood chips. At their stare, the doctor says, “Hork-Bajir require certain… stimuli in order to achieve the reproductive act. Your assigned partner will arrive shortly.”

Lub wants to smell the potted plants. He has seen them at the training facility, but has never come so close. Apparently he needs them to do what must be done, so for once, Odret lets him. He buries his face in green leaves and inhales. «This is the greatest smell in all of the world,» he says.

The door opens. A Hork-Bajir-Controller with a female host strides in and grabs Odret by the back of the neck, pulling them away from the plant. Odret cries out, “What – ”

“Let’s get this over with,” she says, spinning Odret roughly around. Lub’s skin flares hot at the touch of another Hork-Bajir, that rare luxury he only gets to taste in the cages while Odret feeds. She starts applying her hands at strategic points on Odret’s body, as if piloting a ship through a delicate sequence.

«No,» Lub says, sick horror making his hearts beat out of time. «No. Not her. Find Mab Fillat. I wanted to do this with  _him_. I do not choose her!»

A pathetic fantasy flits through Lub’s mind, of the dry lands around the training facility with rows of potted plants, full of that beautiful smell, his forehead blades kissing Mab’s, their chests pressed together, the breath of Mother Sky a sweet wind at their backs–

Odret, who knows what the green places of the Earth really look like, nearly chokes. It’s so small, such a pathetically small dream, compared to what the Hork-Bajir once had. Just a few potted plants, just a kiss of blades, just a quiet place.

The female pushes and pulls in efficient, mechanical motions.

“Stop!” Odret cries. “What are you doing? I don’t even know who you are!”

She shoves her face toward Lub’s. “Your host is male. You get to go back to your regular duties next rane. I am stuck in Host Propagation for the entirety of my host’s gravidity. It will be a boring, disgusting waste of my time. So stop making this harder and just let me finish.”

Odret considers telling her that Lub is ill, that they themself are ill, that they resign their host and will just live as a lowly poolie from now on. Anything, anything but this. They can’t imagine any of it making a difference, though. So they do the one thing that might. They’ve never tried this before, but the thread of memory between Lub and Odret is so strong, it  _must_  run both ways. 

When Odret was a Gedd-Controller, they provided manual labor for Bug fighter repairs. One time, they went to a Bug Fighter crash site deep in the forested mountains by the human city. They relive that memory, just for a moment, and pass it to Lub. «Stay here,» they say. «Don’t come out until I say so.»

«You made this for me?» Lub says, staring up at the trees, filled with that pure wonder the Empire never snuffed out. 

«No, Lub. I didn’t make it. It’s a real place in this world. Not far away. The takers just don’t let you go there.»

Odret surfaces. “Very well,” they say. “Show me how to make this quick.”

  


**Private Message – Eftrof**

  


**WaveRiderChampion**

What would happen if I voluntarily gave up my host and became a poolie?

  


**Eftrof**

What would happen to your host, or to you?

  


**WaveRiderChampion**

To my host.

  


**Eftrof**

They’d probably assume that you had a difficult host, and this is your way of declaring defeat. The Empire has trained host-breakers, for the hard cases. They’d give your host to one of them.

  


**WaveRiderChampion**

Oh. I guess I won’t then.

  


**Eftrof**

Oh, Odret. I wish we were on the same feeding schedule again, so I could find you in person, instead of all this delayed back-and-forth. There’s so much we should talk about.

  


Siar-rane can’t come soon enough. All the train ride back to the training facility, Lub replays Odret’s memory of the forest, and thinks of Mab, who he embraced all through Odret’s time in the Pool, with arms and tangled tails and a story about the smell of green leaves.

Odret is much worse at target practice. They tell the Sub-Visser it’s because Lub lost his muscle memory during the rane without practice. In reality, it’s because they’re consideringwhat to do about Lub.

«If you were free, right now, where would you go?» they ask Lub, clearing the slashed-up fighting mannequins and setting up a round of fresh ones for melee practice.

«To the plants,» Lub says, thinking of the low clumps of scrub in the dry lands. «I wonder how they smell.»

«You can’t live here,» Odret says. The other guards in training watch them, impatient. They set up another mannequin. «You need bark. You have to be in a forest, like in my memory.»

«Oh,» says Lub. «Is that where bark comes from?»

Clearly, Lub can’t live on his own. 

«Do you want a different Yeerk from me? Would that be better?»

«I do not want another taker,» Lub says, suddenly more fierce than Odret has ever known him to be. «I want to be  _free_. Like in the true-elders’ stories.» And Odret is no closer to an answer.

That evening, when Lub crunches his allotment of dried bark, he asks, «But if no one gives it to me, how do I get the bark from the forest?»

«You use your blades to peel it from the trees,» Odret says. 

«Oh,» says Lub. «Is that what blades are for?»

After dinner, Odret goes back outside for melee practice, and shreds a mannequin to pieces with his blades.

When Odret takes down the dead mannequin in the fading light of evening, the melee trainer suddenly crumples to the ground. Odret runs over to check, but then another one crumples. Another. Someone shouts, “Raiders!” and fires a Dracon beam in the gloom. In the momentary blast of Dracon fire, Odret sees swift, silent Hork-Bajir shadows, who drag the crumpled bodies away into the brush. 

The free Hork-Bajir. Odret has heard rumors, but they’re finally here. Odret can stand and fight them. Or they can save Lub.

Odret walks calmly toward the brush. They see holes dug in the dry earth, Hork-Bajir-Controllers getting their heads wrestled into the holes, where Odret realizes the hindmost nostrils would be buried, sending the Hork-Bajir into hypoxic dormancy. 

They kneel before one of the pits and bury Lub’s head in the dry dirt, until everything goes gray.

  


A rough hand pulls Lub up by the back of the neck. A Hork-Bajir face – a  _free_  Hork-Bajir face – shoves against his.

“I offer you two choices, Yeerk,” she says. “Leave his head now, and I kill you swiftly. Or stay in his head, and you either starve to death, or I cut his skull open and pull you out with my hands, like strings of sap from a tree. You won’t like either of those, I promise you.” 

She speaks in smooth, fluent Galard. A Controller, then. A powerful one. “Visser,” Odret guesses, wildly. “I serve Sub-Visser Seventy-Nine. I’m – ”

She shakes him by the back of the neck until his teeth rattle. “I am not a Controller, you arrogant slug! You are not the only creatures in this galaxy who can learn Galard! I am the leader of the free Hork-Bajir, and I will win my brother free, one way or another. Now, tell me:  _which way will it be_?”

Lub’s neck wants to bow backwards in worship of her.  _She is Father Deep. She gives life from the earth, and she is the fiercest monster who gives birth to monsters._

“I will give him up,” Odret says. “I buried his head in the pit. I wanted him to be free.” They begin to disengage from Lub’s brain.  _Free!_  cries his mind, cries his body.  _Free at the hands of Father Deep!_

The Hork-Bajir who talks like a Yeerk sneers at Odret. “I don’t believe you.”

A scaled hand closes around Odret’s front half and pulls them the rest of the way out, into the scalding dry air. In the last moment they can, Odret admits to themself that they miss Trarrer, and that Trarrer doesn’t miss Odret. That nobody in the world will miss Odret, except perhaps Eftrof. And to think they had believed Lub’s world to be pathetically small.

The blade falls swiftly, just like she promised.


End file.
